Furthest I've gotten is lvl 17 with my warrior. The book will help to get me through the rough patches, but I still suck at it. I can't even get TO the goo half the time with the Rogue, let alone survive with him. The game is really unabalanced towards the poor Rogue. The Wizard is really kinda meh. I mean the wands are fun, but the recharge time is kind of annoying on shots and I'm not going to waste precious precious food just to get a charge back.

Furthest I've gotten is lvl 17 with my warrior. The book will help to get me through the rough patches, but I still suck at it. I can't even get TO the goo half the time with the Rogue, let alone survive with him. The game is really unabalanced towards the poor Rogue. The Wizard is really kinda meh. I mean the wands are fun, but the recharge time is kind of annoying on shots and I'm not going to waste precious precious food just to get a charge back.

Wands get a lot cooler once you've beaten Tengu and can play as a Battlemage - if you're wielding a wand as a weapon, successful hits restore a charge. You get a good offensive wand (firebolt, disintegration) and you can wreak havoc.

The stupid deaths are even worse, like having an upgraded starting weapon, three scrolls of upgrade and one of weapon upgrade, then dying while having 6 healing potions because you slightly underestimated a monster's attack.

Furthest I've gotten is lvl 17 with my warrior. The book will help to get me through the rough patches, but I still suck at it. I can't even get TO the goo half the time with the Rogue, let alone survive with him. The game is really unabalanced towards the poor Rogue. The Wizard is really kinda meh. I mean the wands are fun, but the recharge time is kind of annoying on shots and I'm not going to waste precious precious food just to get a charge back.

Wands get a lot cooler once you've beaten Tengu and can play as a Battlemage - if you're wielding a wand as a weapon, successful hits restore a charge. You get a good offensive wand (firebolt, disintegration) and you can wreak havoc.

Funny. The Rogue is the one I've gotten farthest with. Level 23. Wielding a blazing mace. The key, I think, was the large amount of dodge I had on the guy through a combination of strength potions, enhanced plate mail armor, and upgraded ring of evasion. My damage output was pitiful, but the enemies just couldn't hit me (until I got to the beholders.

Not that it matters because I already died, but let's say early on you got a Chilling Longsword and shortly after a Flaming Glaive. If you have a couple of Scrolls of Upgrade and a Weapon Upgrade one, in addition to an enchanted started weapon, which of those two would you lay the upgrades on? Or would you wait for a High Accuracy weapon? I feel like Speed and/or Accuracy are king in this game, much more than damage per action, but what are your experiences?

I made it to D14 before finding plate armor, so I was rocking Scale Armor +1 since D3. On the plus side, I had managed to horde 4 scrolls of upgrade, since an early living statue had a Venomous Longsword +2, so when a ghost room yielded plate armor on D14, I knew it was likely at least +1, so I used all four upgrades on it. Turns out it was Plate Armor +3

Of course, with just a longsword, I got picked apart pretty quickly in D16-D19, to the point where I had no healing potions left for the Dwarf King

By the way, for the love of Yendor, do not upgrade enchanted weapons. On a very promising run, I found a Blazing War Hammer +3 early on (can't recall when, might have been before the Tengu) and I blindly used an Upgrade Scroll on it, only to lose the Flaming enchantment. It still kicked ass, but the run lost all its charm right then.

Two things I'd like this game to change: upgrades should not eliminate the enchantment, and you should be able to set waypoints. It's really bothersome to try and remember where that Transmutation well was when you finally get a Scroll of Upgrade. You should just click on a waypoints list and have your character go there automatically with triggered stops, just like, say, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup does. No need for it to be a teleporting move, either.

When you throw a scroll of upgrade into a well of transmutation, it becomes a scroll of weapon upgrade, which will either retain the enchantment on an enchanted weapon, or bestow an enchantment on an unenchanted weapon.

Also, you can upgrade an enchanted weapon, but the higher the level of an enchanted weapon is, the higher the chance there is a plain upgrade will remove the enchantment. I think the formula is something like 1/n or 1/(n+1) for the chance of keeping the enchantment, where n is the level of the weapon (so for a +2 Longsword, n = 2).

When using a standard Scroll of Upgrade on a +N enchanted weapon, the weapon has a probability 1/N (1 if N=0) to keep its enchantment while becoming a +(N+1) weapon (still enchanted or not). Consequently, using a standard Scroll of Upgrade:

a +0 or a +1 enchanted weapon will never lose its enchantment,a +2 enchanted weapon has a 50 % probability to lose its enchantment when becoming a +3 weapon,a +3 enchanted weapon has a 66.66… % probability to lose its enchantment when becoming a +4 weapon,etc.

Also, reforging your Short Sword +1 will not cause you to lose enchantments.

I think the RNG on my phone is broken through I don't think I've even beat the first boss with all the chars yet. Add in flashing my phone wiping out my PD files (very annoying but I understand why) I don't even have any books on my phone currently.

I generally do well with warrior and rogue, but have a really tough time with the mage. Got past the Tengu for the first time with him a few weeks ago, and now I do okay as a battlemage but it seems like I still get either non-offensive wands (seriously, TONS of Wands of Flock) or no armor better than chainmail, or both.

For what it's worth, I stopped buying the Ankh months ago in favor of buying Potions of Healing. Same basic effect (a full life bar) but you get to keep all your stuff and you stay where you were. The only downside to this plan is that I have to use potions a bit more liberally to avoid Death by Stupid.

I generally have enough money to buy both, and then I just farm health potions if I need to.

But now that I think about it, yeah, most times when I die, I don't both using my Ankh because I lost like 10 potions of healing and a weapon that I was trying to gear up to use or something, so I just say "fuck it" and start over.

I've gone to Level 11 -- through Tengu -- without ever finding a melee weapon (lots of projectiles). Armor, sure - I was rocking scale mail+5 at that point to go along with my dagger - but not a single, solitary weapon. The shop on 6 had a quarterstaff, and I was certain that I had to find something better than that soon, right? Nope.

After many bad starts, the best of which got me to level 5 where I starved to death almost immediately, I seem to have a good start going. Level 4 Mage on level 4 with a +2 Venomous sword, +2 chainmail (and the strength to use them) with two rations in my inventory.

After many bad starts, the best of which got me to level 5 where I starved to death almost immediately, I seem to have a good start going. Level 4 Mage on level 4 with a +2 Venomous sword, +2 chainmail (and the strength to use them) with two rations in my inventory.

The game is so much easier when I can kill things rapidly.

...and dead on level 5. Ran into Goo immediately, killed him barely and died to caustic ooze.

After many bad starts, the best of which got me to level 5 where I starved to death almost immediately, I seem to have a good start going. Level 4 Mage on level 4 with a +2 Venomous sword, +2 chainmail (and the strength to use them) with two rations in my inventory.

The game is so much easier when I can kill things rapidly.

...and dead on level 5. Ran into Goo immediately, killed him barely and died to caustic ooze.

After many bad starts, the best of which got me to level 5 where I starved to death almost immediately, I seem to have a good start going. Level 4 Mage on level 4 with a +2 Venomous sword, +2 chainmail (and the strength to use them) with two rations in my inventory.

The game is so much easier when I can kill things rapidly.

...and dead on level 5. Ran into Goo immediately, killed him barely and died to caustic ooze.

The trick to Goo is to stand so you are in water but he isn't.

Ah. Duly noted. I don't think I am likely to beat him again any time soon. Getting the gear I had seems to be highly unlikely.

You can also kite him by leading him back to the stairs up to Level 4. Stand next to the stairs, hit him and wait for him to pump up, then flee to 4. When you return he won't be pumped anymore, skip your action and stand on the stairs. He'll move right up next to you. Hit him, he'll pump, you flee and return. Rinse and repeat until he's dead. If he does hit you, you can go to the nearest water on L4 to wash off the ooze.

Just a general tip to those that find themselves struggling a lot:All of these tips can be found through trial and error, but really, if you take a few minutes to read the wikia pages, you'll be much better equipped to do better in the game. The game is small enough that you could really read every wikia page in less than an hour.

Between D6 and D8, I've had skeletons drop a Stunning Longsword (16) and a Wild Glaive (18), and a Living Statue drop a Venomous Battle Axe (16). There was also a graveyard with a Plate Armor +2.

I had three scrolls upgrade when I got the longsword, so I rolled the dice and upgraded it twice to bring it to a lvl 14 weapon, and then I reforged my shortsword to make a +3. Of course, it was only after I did that that I got the Glaive

But I got a scroll of upgrade in D7 and D8, which I used on my Plate Armor before I knew it was +2 Plate Armor, so now I'm rocking Plate Armor +4 with a Stunning Longsword +3, and I have a Venemous Battle Axe +0 and a Wild Glaive +0 (probably +0, since a skeleton dropped it; they normally don't drop upgraded weapons, I don't think).

Plus, I've got an Ankh and 6 Potions of Health, and I haven't even faced Tengu yet.

[edit]Oh yeah, and in D1-D4, I got a Wand of Firebolt and a Wand of Lightning